January 4, 1998

By ABBOTT COMBES

sst. Hey, kid, wanna see some filthy pictures? Long before VCR's and relaxed mores made pornography homespun entertainment, there were the so-called Tijuana Bibles -- anonymously and, for the most part, crudely drawn comic books that raised social intercourse to a new sexual low. At a time when mainstream funny papers aroused all the passion television does today, these under-the-counter sex strips gave generations of young men a place to stash their prurience. There was nothing subtle about them. The people there were doing it! Joe Palooka, Betty Boop, Donald Duck, Amos 'n' Andy, William Powell and Myrna Loy, Aunt Jemima, Lou Gehrig, Mae West, Sonja Henie, Al Capone, Hitler -- it was truly melting-pot raunch, equal-opportunity debasement, without regard to chromosomes, race, ethnic root or species. They were all doing it! Now, in keeping with the vogue of bestowing respectability on everything rediscovered, comes Bob Adelman's ''Tijuana Bibles,'' a respectable coffee-table book. Fortunately, the main task of moderating this bible study has fallen to the cartoonist Art Spiegelman. In an introductory essay nicely enhanced with double- and triple-entendres, Spiegelman offers up an appropriate scrapbook of history, context, significance and criticism (artistic), all the while gently deconstructing his own deconstruction. But this isn't a book you buy for the a priori dissection. O.K., some strips are drawn better than others, and maybe there is some cosmic psychosocio exegesis for it all, but body parts are body parts and natural (and unnatural) acts are natural (and unnatural) acts. Is it art? Nah, it's filthy pictures. For some of us, that's enough.